Homeschooling adventures have turned into some serious life skills lessons, which in turn have become foraging.

As previously mentioned, we use foragingtexas.com as a main source of information, but we do a lot of external research on our own as well.

Mustang Grapes – from foragingtexas.com

Scientific name: Vitis mustangensisAbundance: plentifulWhat: fruits, leaves, young tendrilsHow: fruit raw (very tart), cooked, dried, preserves, wine; leaves and tendrils cooked,Where: Edges of woods. Mustang grape leaves are fuzzy and have a white underside.When: summerNutritional Value: calories, antioxidantsOther uses: water can be obtained from the vines (see technique in grapes- muscadine post), wild yeast from the fruitDangers: Mustang grapes are very acidic and handling/eating large amounts of the raw fruit can cause burns to hands and mouth.

When homeschooling, this is a good time to teach your kiddo about plant classifications. While picking the leaves (we had a mixture of Mustang grape leaves and Muscadine grape leaves, but I don’t recommend stuffing the Muscadines, they end up a little stringy).

Kingdom – Plantae

Order – Vitales

Family – Vitaceae

Genus – Vitis

Species – V. mustangensis

Our lessons then continue into the kitchen where we follow recipes and learn about fractions and conversions. You’d be amazed at how much a three year old will pick up on if you just show them. We halved this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/my-own-famous-stuffed-grape-leaves/ as well as added lemon balm from our home garden to the rice mixture.